Confederate wizards of the saddle /

by Bennett H. Young

General Magruder promptly sent for General Green and unfolded to him his plan of attack on Galveston, and suggested to him to take three hundred volunteers from his cavalry, and with these, on board two steamboats under command of Captain Leon Smith, aid in General Magruder’s attempt to recapture Galveston. But General Green, conscious of his power and confident of his ability as a leader of men, declined to embark on boats under the command of Captain Smith, insisting that, as he was supreme on the land, he must also be supreme on the sea; and then it was that General Magruder, pleased with the spirit of the man, entrusted to Colonel Green the command of the two river steamers, the Bayou City and the Neptune, which had been rudely converted into marine rams with a few cotton bales to protect their wheels and engines.

It required immeasurable courage in such frail and unseaworthy boats to pass out into the Gulf of Mexico, or into the harbor at Galveston, and attack war vessels. General Green, now fifty-one years of age, had led a most strenuous life, and it was too late for him to take counsel of fear. He went back to his command full of the excitement and glamour of glory’s calls and issued the following order:

“Soldiers, you are called upon to volunteer in a dangerous expedition. I have never deceived you, I will not deceive you now. I regard this as the most desperate enterprise that men ever engaged in. I shall go, but I do not know that I shall ever return; I do not know that any who go with me will, and I want no man to volunteer who is not willing to die for his country and to die now.”

None could say that they misunderstood the purport of this laconic but stirring and impassioned appeal. The 5th and 7th regiments had been recruited to a full quota. Not five in a hundred had ever been to sea; they knew nothing of the management of any sort of seagoing vessel, but they did know that General Green wanted them to go and they did go, largely because he was going with them. When the two regiments were drawn up in line and volunteers called for, be it said to the renown of Texas and to the honor of the Confederate soldier that, without an instant’s hesitation, or a moment’s delay, every man in these two regiments stepped forward and declared his willingness to take the chances of war in an expedition of which they knew nothing, except that their beloved commander told them that while it might lead through the paths of glory, it also might lead to the grave.

In all the history of the Confederate armies, so replete with the highest and noblest heroism, there is no record of anything grander or more inspiring than this act of the men of these two regiments, offering, in the face of the warning of their beloved commander, to go with him, if needs be, even unto present death, to serve their country.

A cavalryman never likes to give up his horse. There is a sense of safety, as well as a sense of pride in the cavalry mount. And when those valiant Texans went away and committed their steeds to the care of their comrades, it added a new radiance to their courage and valor. Ready to leave their beasts to enter upon an element of which they knew nothing and engage in an enterprise of which they were profoundly ignorant, all because, through the voice of their commander, they heard the call of country bidding them go to meet the foes of the land they loved, was both an unusual and an extraordinary exhibition of patriotism and of obedience to duty’s demands.

But, like those with Gideon of old, three hundred alone could assume the dangers and win the honors of this peculiar engagement.

Some members of the 4th Regiment heard of the expedition, and these hurried forward to offer their services, but they were reluctantly denied the valued privilege, and ordered back to their command. Satisfied to obey, they were filled with grief which later became even more poignant when they understood the result of the splendid victory of which they were denied a share.

It was a difficult task to determine who should go, in face of the universal and intrepid desire manifested by these volunteers, to take part in this desperate and dangerous enterprise.

With that abandon of courage that marks the really brave, these three hundred soldiers, one-half from the 5th and one-half from the 7th Regiment, marched down to the wharf at Houston, and took passage on the Bayou City and Neptune.